Sam Amidon is currently in Europe playing with the Whale Watching tour, a group show that includes Ben Frost, Nico Muhly, Valgeir Sigurðsson and others. A live video from one of their recent gigs is below. Sam will be back to play Mercury Lounge on Wednesday, June 23rd. Tickets are on sale.

Sam Amidon's I See the Sign, out now on Bedroom Community, is an amazing listen, and one of the highlights, maybe surprisingly, is the R. Kelly cover posted above. At the album release show in April his comments on the tune - "I thought R. Kelly had done something really amazing...He'd written a song that had no bearing on reality" (via Village Voice) - shed some light on the foreboding irony of the song. The albums' other songs come from a variety of sources: bluegrass, Appalachian folk, blues - all become recognizably his, with instrumentation by composer Nico Muhly, parts played by Daniel Bjarnason and Shazad Ishmaily, and backup vocals from Beth Orton. He discusses recording the album in Iceland in a recent World Cafe session. Listen here. Also read our interview with Sam conducted at Big Ears.

Sam Amidon - How come that Blood (live) - live performance of Sam Amidon's How come that Blood. Footage shot in Brussels on the Bedroom Community's Whale Watching Tour. Also featured in this piece are Ben Frost, Nico Mulhy, Valgeir Sigurdsson.